THE TOWER COMMISSION REPORT : THE ONGOING INVESTIGATIONS

Senate Select Committee

The 11-member special committee impaneled by the Senate to investigate the affair has hired staff, reviewed the findings of the earlier Senate Intelligence Committee probe, subpoenaed witnesses for closed-door testimony, arranged to submit written interrogatories to foreign leaders and granted immunity to three persons. But the committee’s investigation is only just beginning, and public hearings are not expected to begin until mid-April. The panel, headed by Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) has until August to issue a report.

House Select Committee

This 15-member panel, conducting a parallel investigation, also is not expected to begin hearings until April. On Thursday it granted limited immunity to several lower-level figures in the affair, but no decision has been made on extending immunity to central figures Lt. Col. Oliver L. North and Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter. The committee is directed by Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) and is using information collected during testimony in December before the House Intelligence Committee. The panel’s report is due by October.

Independent Counsel

Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, appointed by a special judicial panel, has for two months been compiling evidence for possible use in criminal prosecutions arising from the affair. His probe encompasses both the Iran arms sale operation and the aid efforts for the contras while U.S. military assistance to them was banned by Congress. Twenty lawyers are assisting Walsh--the largest outside prosecutor force assembled since Watergate--but the investigation is under the cloud of a pending constitutional challenge filed by North to the prosecutor’s legal authority.

Senate Intelligence Committee

This committee, which is permanently charged with overseeing the activities of the U.S. intelligence community, held three weeks of hearings in December and issued a report in late January that detailed its findings, but drew no conclusions about wrongdoing. The committee’s attention has since turned to the role of Robert M. Gates, President Reagan’s nominee to be CIA director, in the Iran-contra affair. Its vote on the Gates nomination will be the crucial first test of the scandal’s impact on the President.